Epirus, for the Elean chariot, breeds
(In hopes of palms) a race of running steeds.
This is th' original contract; these the laws
Imposed by Nature, and by Nature's cause,
On sundry places, when Deucalion hurled
His mother's entrails on the desert world;
Whence men, a hard laborious kind, were born. 95
Then borrow part of winter for thy corn;
And early, with thy team, the glebe in furrows
turn;
That, while the turf lies open and unbound,
Succeeding suns may bake the mellow ground.
But, if the soil be barren, only scar
The surface, and but lightly print the share,
When cold Arcturus rises with the sun;
Lest wicked weeds the corn should overrun
In watery soils; or lest the barren sand
Should suck the moisture from the thirsty
land.
Both these unhappy soils the swain forbears,
And keeps a sabbath of alternate years,
That the spent earth may gather heart again,
And, bettered by cessation, bear the grain.
At least where vetches, pulse and tares, have
stood,
And stalks of lupines grew (a stubborn wood),
The ensuing season, in return, may bear
The bearded product of the golden year:
For flax and oats will burn the tender field,
And sleepy poppies harmful harvests yield.
But sweet vicissitudes of rest and toil
Make easy labour, and renew the soil.
Yet sprinkle sordid ashes all around,
And load with fattening dung thy fallow ground.
* Dr. Carey reads "ear." I have not disturbed the text, though his conjecture is ingenious.
Thus change of seeds for meagre soils is best; 120 And earth manured, not idle, though at rest.
Long practice has a sure improvement found, With kindled fires to burn the barren ground, When the light stubble, to the flames resigned, Is driven along, and crackles in the wind. Whether from hence the hollow womb of carth Is warmed with secret strength for better birth; Or, when the latent vice is cured by fire, Redundant humours through the pores expire; Or that the warmth distends the chinks, and
New breathings, whence new nourishment she
takes;
Or that the heat the gaping ground constrains,
New knits the surface, and new strings the veins ;
Lest soaking showers should pierce her secret
seat,
Or freezing Boreas chill her genial heat,
Or scorching suns too violently beat.
Nor is the profit small the peasant makes, Who smooths with harrows, or who pounds with rakes,
The crumbling clods: nor Ceres from on high
Regards his labours with a grudging eye;
Nor his, who ploughs across the furrowed
grounds,
And on the back of earth inflicts new wounds;
For he, with frequent exercise, commands
The unwilling soil, and tames the stubborn lands.
Ye swains, invoke the powers who rule the
sky,
For a moist summer, and a winter dry;
For winter drought rewards the peasant's pain,
And broods indulgent on the buried grain.
Hence Mysia boasts her harvests, and the tops
Of Gargarus admire their happy crops.
When first the soil receives the fruitful seed,
Make no delay, but cover it with speed:
So fenced from cold, the pliant furrows break,
Before the surly clod resists the rake;
And call the floods from high, to rush amain
With pregnant streams, to swell the teeming
grain.
Then, when the fiery suns too fiercely play,
And shrivelled herbs on withering stems decay,
The wary ploughman, on the mountain's brow,
Undams his watery stores-huge torrents flow, 160
And, rattling down the rocks, large moisture yield,
Tempering the thirsty fever of the field-
And, lest the stem, too feeble for the freight,
Should scarce sustain the head's unwieldy weight,
Sends in his feeding flocks betimes, to invade
The rising bulk of the luxuriant blade,
Ere yet the aspiring offspring of the grain
O'ertops the ridges of the furrowed plain;
And drains the standing waters, when they yield
Too large a beverage to the drunken field.
But most in autumn, and the showery spring,
When dubious months uncertain weather bring;
When fountains open, when impetuous rain
Swells hasty brooks, and pours upon the plain;
When earth with slime and mud is covered o'er, 175
Or hollow places spew their watery store.
Nor yet the ploughman, nor the labouring steer,
Sustain alone the hazards of the year:
But glutton geese, and the Strymonian crane,
With foreign troops invade the tender grain;
And towering weeds malignant shadows yield;
And spreading succory chokes the rising field.
The sire of gods and men, with hard decrees,
Forbids our plenty to be bought with ease,
And wills that mortal men, inured to toil,
Should exercise, with pains, the grudging soil;
Himself invented first the shining share,
And whetted human industry by care;
Himself did handicrafts and arts ordain,
Nor suffered sloth to rust his active reign.
Ere this, no peasant vexed the peaceful ground,
Which only turfs and greens for altars found:
No fences parted fields, nor marks nor bounds
Distinguished acres of litigious grounds;
But all was common, and the fruitful earth
Was free to give her unexacted birth.
Jove added venom to the viper's brood,
And swelled, with raging storms, the peaceful
flood;
Commissioned hungry wolves t'infest the fold,
And shook from oaken leaves the liquid gold;
Removed from human reach the cheerful fire,
And from the rivers bade the wine retire;
That studious need might useful arts explore;
From furrowed fields to reap the foodful store,
And force the veins of clashing flints t'expire
The lurking seeds of their celestial fire.
Then first on seas the hollowed alder swam;
Then sailors quartered heaven, and found a name
For every fixed and every wandering star-
The Pleiads, Hyads, and the Northern Car.
Then toils for beasts, and lime for birds, were
found,
And deep-mouthed dogs did forest-walks sur-
round;
And casting-nets were spread in shallow brooks,
Drags in the deep, and baits were hung on hooks.
Then saws were toothed, and sounding axes made 215
(For wedges first did yielding wood invade);
And various arts in order did succeed,
(What cannot endless labour, urged by need?)
First Ceres taught, the ground with grain tosow, And armed with iron shares the crooked plough ; 220
When now Dodonian oaks no more supplied
Their mast, and trees their forest-fruit denied.
Soon was his labour doubled to the swain,
And blasting mildews blackened all his grain:
Tough thistles choked the fields, and killed the
And an unthrifty crop of weeds was born:
Then burs and brambles, an unbidden crew
Of graceless guests, the unhappy fields subdue;
And oats unblest, and darnel domineers,
And shoots its head above the shining ears;
So that, unless the land with daily care
Is exercised, and, with an iron war
Of rakes and harrows, the proud foes expelled,
And birds with clamours frighted from the field-
Unless the boughs are lopped that shade the
plain,
And heaven invoked with vows for fruitful
On other crops you may with envy look,
And shake for food the long-abandoned oak.
Nor must we pass untold what arms they wield,
Who labour tillage and the furrowed field;
Without whose aid the ground her corn denies,
And nothing can be sown, and nothing rise—
The crooked plough, the share, the towering
height
Of waggons, and the cart's unwieldy weight,
The sled, the tumbril, hurdles, and the flail,
The fan of Bacchus, with the flying sail-
These all must be prepared, if ploughmen hope
The promised blessing of a bounteous crop.
Young elms, with early force, in copses bow,
Fit for the figure of the crooked plough.
Restored by Dr. Carey [i.e. altered to "others'."—ED.]. The first and second editions have "other."
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